"I feel weird being called Antonee," Antonee Robinson told ESPN. "I prefer being called Jedi." That's not a quirky athlete soundbite — he means it literally. Most people in his life have called him Jedi for over two decades, and his actual first name barely registers.
The origin is straightforward and oddly charming: a five-year-old Robinson put "Jedi" on the back of his youth soccer jersey because he was obsessed with Star Wars. Self-selected nickname. It stuck. Twenty-three years later, the Fulham left-back is introducing himself that way to strangers.
From Milton Keynes to starting left-back for the USA
Robinson was born in Milton Keynes, England in August 1997, but his eligibility for the United States comes through his father, who was born in White Plains, New York. He came up through the Everton academy, spent loan stints at Bolton and Wigan, and never made a senior appearance for Everton before Wigan bought him permanently. Fulham signed him in 2020, and he's made over 200 appearances for the Cottagers since.
England called him into their U-21 setup in March 2018. He turned them down, stuck with the US, and made his senior debut two months later — a 3-0 friendly win over Bolivia where he played 90 minutes and registered an assist. By the time the 2026 World Cup arrived, he had 54 caps and five international goals to his name.
At 28, he's the best left-back in the American player pool and comfortably among the better ones globally — a real statement given how thin that position runs at the top level. At left-back, quality is genuinely scarce, which makes Robinson's value to both Fulham and the USMNT difficult to overstate.
The nickname is a family affair — mostly
Even at home, "Jedi" dominates. His parents and brother use it. His fiancée uses it. Only his sisters consistently call him Antonee. "It's a bit of a mix in my family, to be honest," he said. "Most of the time I will introduce myself as 'Jedi.'"
The nickname only went mainstream in 2022 — four years into his USMNT career — which says something about how long Robinson flew under the radar before the wider football world caught up to what the US had quietly developed at left-back.
